Monday, March 17, 2014

Leprechaun Fun For Everyone!

One of the best parts of being an elementary teacher is the wonder, innocence and excitement in little ones eyes...and boy were those 'Irish' eyes smiling today!

I love making magic happen in my classroom....so having a 'magical' creature create havoc and fun is right up my alley!

So what type of fun did we have getting ready for, and celebrating St Patrick's Day....TONS!

We started by making these adorable leprechauns last week!

This really is a simple project to do...

Give each child a 9x12 piece of green and peach (or tan, white, pink, etc) piece of paper. I show them how to make a 'backwards L' and 'forwards L' to make the hat and a BIG 'U' to make the face, but send them off to do it on their own. I used to have it pre-traced for them, but I like the look of child created art much better now!

Once the hat and face are assembled, they add the 'details'

and I give them strips of orange paper. I show them how to curl it around a pencil and tell them they can use them for a beard and/or hair!

Here is the 'girl' version!

When they are all done, so made a pot of gold and taped them up...this was to show the leprechaun that we were leprechaun loving kinders and they should REALLY visit our classroom!

So the next day we get a note and have to roll 2 dice to find out our leprechaun's name....

and we posted it on our door!

Each day he would leave a shamrock in a spot that he had looked for our gold! It was fun to find his new spot each day!

So then it came time to build a leprechaun 'house' (you CAN'T say 'TRAP!'...he will hear it and never go near it!)

Each child brought in a box to decorate! We had shoe, cereal, cracker, mac & cheese, ziploc & more boxes! I let them go to town with my scrap buckets to create a leprechaun house!

We even talked about making signs to 'lure' him in!

...and gold inside the door to make him want to go in!

we set them all up in our meeting area on Thursday afternoon (they had no school on Friday because of parent/teacher conferences)

So....on Monday...St Patrick's Day...did we catch him???

The door was 'blocked' by this sign

and he apparently had a REALLY fun time with pattern blocks, connecting cubes and more!

Believe it or not, the boxes were more time consuming than the donuts!

(You can choose to have the 'window' [use junk mail envelope windows] or leave it as the shamrock paper from the template!)

The donuts themselves are made from Cheerios!

The magazine says to paint the chocolate on...I dipped them and it worked just as well!

The cinnamon sugar ones are dipped in sugar water and then rolled in cinnamon and sugar!

Here they are all ready to be 'delivered' to my boys, nephews, neighbors and kinders!

So did we like the donuts...

I'd say yes!

And look what else we found...his PJs!!!

They were in the trap by the door! Silly leprechaun! We don't want him to be cold, so we left them out so he can pick them back up (and they are already safely tucked away for next year's adventures!)!

1 comment:

LOVE all the ideas :) I want some of those little donuts!! Next year I am definitely going to do those! The boxes are just adorable.I love all the fun the leprechaun had in your classroom!! Not to mention the fun your kids must have had :) I'll say it again- you are amazing!!!